State of the Game prior to Liveletter

[Jeeqbit]

If anyone has misconceptions about Island Sanctuary or Criterion Dungeons, they've done it to themselves. The dev information on those has been very sparse.

They told us about them before development had barely begun. We were not given a lot of information about the Firmament either. We were told it was "end game content for disciples of the land and hand" and that's almost all we had to go on for a long time. It's normal for information to be vague initially because the idea is still being shaped.

18 Battle Jobs (and the entire battle system) managed by: 1 Supervisor 2 Dedicated developers 1 Intern (who is probably a junior developer by this point)

Looks good to me! Between 3 developers, that would be 6 jobs each. With 2 years between expansions, they have 4 months to work on each job. That's a long time and I doubt they need that long.

Those are minor changes though, aside from drk changes that needed to happen ages ago.

What changes does DRK need? It's simple but it works and fulfils its fantasy. I think it could have more haste, stop following the 60 or 180 cooldown rule or have something extra, but it's not too bad.

Let's be honest with ourselves here.
This expansion is basically the Cataclysm of FFXIV.

That's ridiculous. It's just going to tell us about Island Sanctuaries and the new main story and you think this is somehow a massive overhaul of the game that will ruin it?

I think this is really the main reason. I remember feeling INSANE when I first got into this game back in stormblood and like... there was no criticism of the game that was easily visible?

That's because the game is pretty good. There are legitimate criticisms that people will mostly agree with (such as ARR turning players away or the main story being too long), but players don't dwell on these criticisms and focus on the positives because the general relationship with Yoshi-P is positive.

It's positive because he communicates with us and explains why something is bad. A lot of game developers wouldn't explain why something is bad and that lack of understanding leads to a negative relationship with the developers and constant criticism of them. The issues that are ignored are mostly minor (such as the map being difficult to navigate until you get used to it) or easy to forgive when the majority of the game is good.

I’m curious though how you’d react to the actual objective data people have put out on EW giving us less glams, less content etc overall. Considering this expansion has seen the largest downward curve of playerbase numbers since…..

The data is subjective when SE has provided counter information that disagrees with it.

[Denji]

The community throughout the duration of Shadowbringers conflated bringing up the issue of Viera and Hrothgar hair/hats with harassment of the devs, despite it being obvious that something wasn't adding up and then fast forward to 2022 and all Hrothgar got were Karen and 2b wigs. Granted this wasn't everyone, but it was enough people defending that state of affairs that led to the results we ended up getting.

Viera got *some* hairs that don't fit that well, and others that look ok. A lot of unlockable styles are still missing.

Hrothgar...yeah.

I'm still absurdly offended by what they offered the Hrothgar. I still can't believe it wasn't an April Fools joke.

[aveyond-dreams]

I'm still absurdly offended by what they offered the Hrothgar. I still can't believe it wasn't an April Fools joke.

I'll also never forget the sole poster who actually defended the earless hairstyles. Watching that unfold was surreal to me because they were apparently serious about it, there's just no way we can entrust the discourse to people who are willing to excuse that.

[Aluja89]

Curious how long you've been around the forums, because honestly, they've been a cesspool of negativity since forever. Even during some of the most highly-rated expansions like HW, come here? Nothing but bad-mouthing the devs. Heck, even Reddit - a place known for being negative about practically everything under the sun - is positive about FFXIV and EW.

The simple reality is that EW is seen far and away by the playerbase as a fun, enjoyable, successful expansion, and people are overwhelmingly happy about the current state of the game. Thankfully, the devs realize this and give little credence to the attacks and pathetic insults thrown around on the NA forums. Sadly, what happens is the small group of malcontents create an echo chamber here among themselves, and start managing to actually convince themselves that they represent the playerbase instead of the tiniest sliver of the minority that they in truth are.

I mean, just look in this thread at people declaring things as "facts" which aren't by any means, purely personal opinions, and ones in opposition to the opinions widely shared by the general playerbase. It's okay to be dissatisfied with something. But to call opinions as facts and make pathetic, puerile attacks on the dev team doesn't do anything useful.

Bruuuuuh.

You're so out of the loop it's almost unbelievable, or you're a cultist. I think I'm gonna go with cultist.

[Denji]

I'll also never forget the sole poster who actually defended the earless hairstyles. Watching that unfold was surreal to me because they were apparently serious about it, there's just no way we can entrust the discourse to people who are willing to excuse that.

Yeah. I knew a few Hroths who initially defended it too and just said to use the in-game ears (which... don't look like cat ears) with the hairstyles and then bam, jellybean hrothgar happened and they all mysteriously went silent.

Bruuuuuh.

You're so out of the loop it's almost unbelievable, or you're a cultist. I think I'm gonna go with cultist.

I mean it's a person who's talking about how long people have been on the forums for when they themselves have only been here since January this year, so...

[anhaato]

-

I'm talking about the changes it got, they needed to happen long ago.

[Kisshu]

Nice list.

Such a shame that they won't have time to talk about it, as they need 50% of the time to explain how Datacenter travel will work. And the other half will be stuff we already know (More MSQ, raid, trial).

[Jeeqbit]

I'm talking about the changes it got, they needed to happen long ago.

True. I do wonder why it took that long.

[anhaato]

Nice list.

Such a shame that they won't have time to talk about it, as they need 50% of the time to explain how Datacenter travel will work. And the other half will be stuff we already know (More MSQ, raid, trial).

*50% of the time to explain that it'll be so limited that you won't be able to join parties, use the marketboard, or even type in chat in the dc you're visiting, and why this is a good thing actually.

[Jeeqbit]

*50% of the time to explain that it'll be so limited that you won't be able to join parties, use the marketboard, or even type in chat in the dc you're visiting, and why this is a good thing actually.

I feel certain you'll be able to join parties and chat. I could understand not being able to use the market board so that the economies can't mix, but this was not restricted for world visit so I doubt it will be for data center travel.

The only restrictions I am expecting are the ones that have a good reason, such as not having access to FC or CWLS chat because they are located on the other data center and the world visit restrictions we already have.